Close my Eyes
by Sweet Mouthful
Summary: In the first chapter Severus discovers as a teenager that ignorance must truly be bliss...


It's a songfic, I guess...I said I'd never write one but I did so...   
  
The song is, 'Close My Eyes' by Mariah Carey...I know, Mariah is completely Snape appropriate...  
  
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Funny how one can learn  
  
To grow numb to the madness   
  
And block it away  
  
I left the worst unsaid   
  
Let it all dissipate   
  
And I try to forget  
  
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Severus sit in the parlor of his home of fifteen years. He was alone, twirling his wand around his fingers, while letting his gaze fix somewhere beyond the picture window across the room. Severus was seated on the hard wood floor with his shirtless back leaning against the stiff sofa cushions. He was contemplating whether or not he should conjure a cooling charm for the room. The August heat was becoming unbearable.   
  
Wishing he could ask a house elf to cool down the room, Severus then remembered his father had fired the house elves a week ago. Of course that was after a night of drinking at the pubs. Stumbling in from the door, he had tripped over a house elf, Grupshin, making its way to the kitchen, causing himself to go flying head first into the stairs. Cursing all the while, he told them all to leave and never come back. The man was hot-headed no doubt; that's where Severus got it from.   
  
Deciding to just put up with the heat, Severus chucked his wand to the right of him. He put his face in his hands, making an effort to ignore the sounds of a boggart, crashing around in a cupboard. He no longer bothered with trying to filter out, the yells of his father and the crying of his mother, from his head.   
  
His mother and father's fighting was always comforting to Severus. Whatever happened he always knew he could count on that. Twisted stability, as he liked to refer to it. For as long as he could remember, four nights out of seven, Severus went off by himself after dinner and waited for the beginning shouts. Which would always escalate into something much more. Something more vicious and hurtful. He could always tell in the evening, whether or not there would be a confrontation. Always, the fights were always about the same thing in the end. His father's daily escapades after work. His little harmless visits to the pub. His field trips into muggle territory.   
  
Severus hoisted himself onto the sofa and off of the floor recalling one night a few summers ago. He thought of it weekly and remembered it like it was yesterday.   
  
It had been the evening of his return from his first year at Hogwarts and as usual, dinner came and went, only his father wasn't in attendance. It was just Severus and his mom, Solan. Throughout the meal Severus had tried to ignore the fact his mother was shaking slightly every time she held her goblet and occasionally stole glances at the doorway. She looked like hell, but he never said anything. The awkwardness inevitable. When they finished dessert, Severus looked for an excuse to go to bed. He remembered, how he didn't want her to ask him into the parlor where they'd sit and she'd pry about school. Classes, friends, professors. When he was picked up by her, from the platform, she had already started to ask him questions. He had ignored her. But he knew he couldn't have ignored her that night.   
  
"Mother?" he had asked.   
  
"Yes dear?" she replied. Severus recalled the detached way she had answered.   
  
"Well, I'm awfully t-" he began but didn't finish. Daddy was home.   
  
Mother and son looked at each other briefly before turning their matching black eyes to the doorway where Severus' father walked in, unsurprisingly, smelling faintly of whiskey. Though he hadn't been completely inebriated; he wasn't smiling. Getting completely trashed always meant a huge, god damned smile on his face. No, not trashed that time. But even a smile never stopped him from exhibiting the power he liked to exude on his loving wife and son.   
  
"What're you doing here, boy?" he had asked rounding on Severus, who just sat there staring at the empty goblet in front of him, numb to the question, but hoping his father would forget about him so he could have escaped to his room. Thankfully it was his mother who had spoken for him.  
  
"Severus is home for the summer. School's over." she stated simply.   
  
"I see...I forgot. Say, why don't you show me what you can do with a wand, boy?" Severus' father, obnoxiously, rested his hand on his son's shoulder making him flinch. Severus silently plead with his mother to get him out of that kitchen. He never did want to talk to his father when he was even the slightest bit drunk.  
  
"You know he can't. Students aren't allowed to do magic outside of school." Solan said. She had looked at Severus smiling with fondness. "But you know, defense against the dark arts is his best subject."  
  
The look on his father's face showed that was the wrong thing for Solan to have said. Severus remembered with great detail how his father's eyes had narrowed and how, with much force, he slapped the back of Severus' head.   
  
"Defense against the dark arts? Who gives a rats arse about defense against the dark arts!?" And without warning he had picked up Severus' empty goblet and threw it against the nearest wall. "Don't stare at that thing like a damned idiot!" he had said. "Look at me! I thought it was understood that you to excel in potions! If you want to be accepted by the Dark Order they'll care more if you knew how to make a deadly poison not kill a fucking deadly flobber worm!" His father smashed his fist on the table. Severus remembered a house elf in the corner of the room, with that pathetic scared look in its eyes.  
  
Severus, frozen in his seat, had been thinking about the last time his father had ganged up on him while he was drunk. He was about ten years old and it resulted in bruising. He didn't know, what to say; what his father expected him to say.   
  
"Say something boy!" Severus couldn't speak; his mouth closed and opened but didn't form any words. He had felt jittery.   
  
"For merlin's sake, you're drunk! Leave the child alone!" Solan said coming to Severus' aid too late.   
  
And that's when it happened. That was the first time Severus saw his father hurt his mother but not the first time it happened. He slapped her then threw her down; screaming like a maniac the whole time. Asking why Solan why she had to interrupt his conversation with his boy, asking her why she didn't respect him. Severus managed to escape, from his father's words of distaste and his mother's quiet crying, to his bedroom. He spent the night, after a year long absence, home sobbing. The next day, while he was playing a game of wizard's chess with Grupshin, he decided to erase the last night from his memory. But he just couldn't leave it from his thoughts.   
  
Currently, a deeply etched scowl could be made out on Severus' face through the dim light coming through the window. He hated his father. He hated his mother for taking the insults and abuse. He hated the heat. He hated how all of his thoughts contradicted each other. He hated how he didn't know what he wanted in life. He even hated how hideous the drapes were.  
  
He hated himself for being a coward.   
  
At first, when he began witnessing all that went on, he had half a mind to go and stop his father from hurting his mother. A few times he'd even get his wand out and stand outside the host room, for their fight. But he'd always retreat to some darkened room and occupy himself in other ways.   
  
It became a test of his mind to try to shut down his emotion and pretend he didn't care what went on. It's not like his mother ever really tried to defend herself. For all he said he cared, she deserved every slap thrown her way. He had no tolerance for weak people.   
  
'What are you saying Severus?' he thought to himself. 'You are the weakest person I know.' Those thoughts felt bitter in his mind and so he ignored them.  
  
Feeling odd, Severus disregarded the loud crash of glass and scream from upstairs and decided to go outside. He walked out of the front door. His bare feet were sensitive yet accustomed to the harsh gravel on the makeshift walkway. Severus proceeded to the side yard where he sought refuge behind an ancient oak tree.   
  
As he stared at the waning moon, Severus stretched out his long legs in front of him. A beginning of a headache was forming.   
  
'It's all of this damn thinking,' he thought. 'I swear, the hell with thinking about any of this anymore. They're adults. Let them kill each other for all I care. Maybe then I'd be able to get a decent night's rest. Damned house.'   
  
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With the weight of the world  
  
That I held deep inside   
  
Life was a winding road  
  
And I learned many things   
  
Little ones shouldn't know  
  
But I closed my eyes  
  
Steadied my feet on the ground   
  
Raised my head to the sky  
  
And though time's rolled by  
  
Still I feel like a child  
  
As I look at the moon   
  
Maybe I grew up  
  
A little too soon  
  
I can't help but think is confusing and all off. But I just can't put my finger on the problem, any advice or constructive criticism is welcome. 


End file.
